Michael Burgan

As a freelancer, Michael Burgan has written more than 250 non-fiction books for children and teens, as well as some fiction and adaptations of classic novels. He is also the editor of The Biographer’s Craft, the newsletter for Biographers International Organization. As a playwright, he has had short works produced across the country. Burgan is a former network playwright with the Chicago Dramatists and a current member of the Dramatists Guild.

Credits include:
Alternate selection, 1999 Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival (GIGO)
Theatres Against War 2005 Freedom Follies, New York (Truth, Justice, and . . . )
Self-produced solo show, Side Studio, Chicago (18: A Year With Footnotes)
Connecticut Heritage Productions 2011 New Stories on Stage, First Place (Rosary Peas)
2011 Boston Theater Marathon (Mirror Touch)
2015 Benchwarmers, Santa Fe Playhouse (Visible)

Contact: mburgan@yahoo.com

Joey Chavez

Born and raised in Santa Fe Joey graduated from SFHS in 1975. He graduated from UNM with a BFA in theater in 1980 and then from OU with an MFA in theater performance.  Joey then complicated a 2 professional internship from the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, GA where he worked professionally earning his SAG and AEA cards before moving to NYC.  Joey later moved back to Santa Fe with his wife Robin and little Joey. He ran the theater department at SFHS for 15 years before accepting the theater department chairmanship at NMSA 2010. He is a published playwright and has more than 30 plays to his credit. Venues and companies include, The Public Theater, Circle Rep, Lincoln Center, Circle in the Square, The Alliance Theatre, ART Station, Detroit Center for the Arts, Mission Cultural Center, Horizon Theatre, Oklahoma Theater Center, The Lensic, Santa Fe Playhouse and Teatro Paraguay’s to name a few.

Joey’s storied career in theatre represents 40 years of work where he has focused on writing roles for young actors.  

Bronwen Denton-Davis

Bronwen is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, and director whose award-winning works
have premiered in Santa Fe and traveled to Los Angeles, New York, and London.

Bronwen served as co-founder and Artistic Director of the Santa Fe Theatre Company, which was founded to encourage new plays by focusing exclusively on original works. She served as the Director of the Playwrights Lab that assisted new plays to production locally and nationally. Bronwen was the co-creator of the original Benchwarmers at the Santa Fe Playhouse to which she contributed three plays, Waiting for Gaia, Waiting for William, and Angels in Waiting. She has premiered two critically acclaimed one-woman shows in Santa Fe, and premiered and directed her play String of Pearls at the Santa Fe Playhouse.

Three of Bronwen’s plays were showcased in a single season at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her mystical The Book of Wren premiered in Santa Fe with Theaterwork, directed by David Olson, and went on to be produced and directed by Valentina Fratti at The Miranda Theatre Company in NYC where it won a best new play nod from Backstage. Peeling Figs was nominated for an New York Innovative Theater Award. Other works have been presented in Brit Bits, NYC, and the So and So Arts Club in London. Invited to write for film, Bronwen shifted to creating scripts for Sandra Bullock, Gabriel Byrne, Simon Wincer, Bethany Rooney, and Montezuma Esparza.

Bronwen is a graduate of the University of California and holds an RSC Master Class Certificate.

Contact: bldd@mindspring.com

Leslie Dillen

Leslie is an award-winning actor, solo performer and playwright. She’s performed in theatre, television and film, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston. Leslie’s full-length, ten-minute plays, and solo plays have had productions around the US and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and New York Fringe Festival. In Santa Fe she acted in productions of her solo play “The Passions of Mabel Dodge Luhan” and her full-length play “Two Wives in India”. Her newest play “Avalanche” was produced by Just Say It Theater in 2021. Leslie has performed with various companies in Santa Fe, and most recently with New Mexico Actors Lab in “Doll’s House Part 2”, “Other Desert Cities”, and “The Children”.

Leslie trained with Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse, at The American Conservatory Theater under William Ball, and received her Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Boston University. Leslie is a member of Dramatist Guild.

Contact: leslie.dillen@comcast.net

Jodi Drinkwater

Jodi Drinkwater is a painter, poet, playwright, and filmmaker. She has had her short plays performed in a variety of venues in Santa Fe, including Santa Fe Playhouse, Teatro Paraguas, Warehouse 21, and other places in connection with Julesworks Follies and Benchwarmers. She has degrees in Literature, Creative Writing, Gallery Management, and Film Studies—Screenwriting. And she has had her feature-length psychological thriller rejected by Drew Barrymore’s production company. She is co-collaborator and co-star of The Land of Tranquil Light—YouTube Channel, which takes a surreal look at the lives of two artists trying to make big in Santa Fe.

More about Jodi: https://youtube.com/@thelandoftranquillight?si=BFSSRToTMvlQY9Qp

Email: dreamsofwater@yahoo.com

Dale Dunn

Dale is a playwright, dramaturg, producer and co-artistic director of Just Say It Theater here in Santa Fe. Her latest play, A Subtle Kind of Murder, will be presented by New Mexico Actors Lab and directed by Lynn Goodwin in June, 2025.

Dale’s other plays include The Big Heartless, a semi-finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference (produced by Relative Theatrics in Laramie, Wyoming, and by Just Say It Theater in Santa Fe);  Sworn to Water (Theaterwork/JSIT ), Body Burden (Adobe Theater/Santa Fe Performing Arts), Driving While Innocent (First Stage Los Angeles),  Parakeet Love (Fusion Theater’s The Seven/Women’s Voices),  Armed and Dangerous (Finalist, The Actor’s Theater of Louisville’s Heideman Award) and Gun Play (The Seven/Samuel French OOB Festival, New York/Festival Tout’tout Court, Montreal).

Dale’s work as a dramaturg includes Ironweed Productions’ Our Town, Buried Child, Good People, Death of a Salesman, and Aliens.  Dale received her MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Contact: dalewdunn@gmail.com

Art Fox

I have been a professional actor and writer in Chicago for over 40 years. I've taught writing at DePaul University in Chicago since 2003. Two of my 10 minute plays have won first and second place awards from Chicago Writer's Bloc.

I have a full length play set in NM and featuring 3 LatinX actors I'd like to get produced in SF or Albuquerque.

Contact: artffox@gmail.com

Suzanne Lederer

Constance: The Art of Being Mrs. Oscar Wilde, is an original play about the married life of Constance Lloyd Holland and her husband, English playwright and author, Oscar Wilde.
Two of Suzanne’s plays, Platform, a bilingual piece in English and American Sign Language, and Ebb & Flo, about a brother and sister vaudeville team, were produced as part of the Benchwarmers Short Play Festival. Platform has been archived in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Suzanne adapted William Shakespeare’s As You Like It for Red Thread, as well as The Tempest for Shakespeare in Santa Fe. 

Suzanne is a proud member of the Actors Equity Association since 1971 and The Dramatists Guild of America since 2014.

Contact: Western1853@earthlink.net

Aaron Leventman

Aaron Leventman attended Columbia University’s Graduate School for film where his thesis screenplay was given a professional reading at the Union Square Theatre in Manhattan. He moved to Santa Fe from Provincetown after his involvement as a writer/director/actor with the Provincetown Theatre Company. When living in Santa Fe, he performed with most of the local theatre companies in productions of True West, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, For the Love of Three Oranges, Macbeth, Opus, I Never Sang for my Father, and many original plays. He’s also appeared in industrials, short films, and features. Aaron’s plays have been performed all over the country, many of which are published and available on Amazon.com. He recently co-produced an evening of his own short works titled Almost Adults that met with tremendous acclaim including the Mayor declaring LGBT Theatre Day in Santa Fe, NM, on opening night.

Contact: aleventman@yahoo.com

Holly Lovejoy

Holly R. Lovejoy is an artivist, intimacy coach, orgastronomist™, and queer, unapologetic badass wordsmith. With a BA in Theater and her MFA in playwriting and screenwriting, Holly is committed to writing work that amplifies the female experience and explores how female identifying people navigate trauma, love, sex, heartache, inequity, and grief. She can be found dishing about love and relationships on the podcast Shadow of Love or blogging about life and the intersection of food and sex.

Holly is an exceptional writer, editor, and collaborator with a background in project management and program management that nicely compliments her work in theater and film production.

Email: hollywoodnm1@gmail.com

Website: http://www.hollylovejoy.com

Riley Samuel Merritt

Riley is a trained actor out of New Mexico State University, graduating class of 2022. Since graduation, Riley has been honored to participate in many of Santa Fe's wonderful theatre companies, including the Santa Fe Playhouse, Tri-M productions, Teatro Paraguas and Family Theatre of Santa Fe.

More information: http://rileysamuelmerritt.com

Contact: rileysmerritt@gmail.com

Antonio Miniño

Antonio Miniño (They, Them) is a Caribbean genderqueer actor, director, intimacy consultant, writer, dramaturg, host, and life coach. Their work has been seen in New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Canada, Ireland, Serbia, and Dominican Republic. They are the founder of Different Translation, Grace in Progress Consulting, and co-founder of Manhattan Theatre Works. They are the writer of the #PersonOfChange column (soon to be a podcast). Two-time Jonathan Alper Directing Fellow (Manhattan Theatre Club), two-time SDCF Observer, and assistant director at Signature Theatre (Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, directed by Tony winner Mark Brokaw). Alumni of Directors Lab North and Directors Lab West. They are a member of Rising Sun Performance Company in NY, Intimacy Coordinators of Color, Intimacy Choreographers of Los Angeles, SAG-AFTRA, and SDC.

Talia Pura

A member of the Dramatists Guild, Talia has enjoyed success as a playwright in both publications and productions. A Friend for Life is included in the Playwrights Press of Canada’s latest anthology of short plays. She is also in collections with Heinemann and the University of Michigan Press. Twice her plays have been chosen for presentation at the Women Playwrights International Conference. She recently completed a commission for The UnSlut Project, creating a play based on Emily Lindin’s UnSlut: a memoir. Her play, 10 O’clock was included in The Santa Fe Playhouse Benchwarmer Festival. In 2010, Talia was selected as a Canadian Forces war artist and conducted research in Afghanistan, resulting in several plays and screenplays. Ten of her short screenplays have been produced, as well as more than twenty of her plays. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Manitoba (Canada).

Contact: talia@taliapura.com or 505.428.8508

Mara Raden

Mara Raden is a pen for hire, with over twenty years of experience working in publishing, journalism, theatre, television and film. She has extensive experience in writing and editing nonfiction, fiction, science fiction and journalism for print as well as media. Mara specializes in consulting and mentoring writers in narrative storytelling, character development, comedy and dialogue. She can be found presently; writing, teaching, and developing projects in literature, media and for the stage in Santa Fe, NM and with Pipeline Media Group in Los Angeles, CA. Her approach to writing and development is deeply collaborative.

For consulting, editing, writing or evaluation services: mararaden@yahoo.com

KENNETH ROBBINS

Kenneth Robbins, Professor Emeritus Theatre, Louisiana Tech University, is a working playwright, author of over 50 published plays, winner of the SETC New Play Award, the Festival of Southern Theatre New Play Award, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Program Award, and others; produced in Tokyo, London, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and New York. He is also a published poet and award-winning novelist.

More information: https://proplay.ws/audition/

Contact: krobbins@latech.edu

Rosemary Zibart

Rosemary has worked as a journalist, playwright, and children’s book author. Her award-winning plays for young people include Never Ever Land and My Dear Doctor. A comic one-act, Babe, Inc., was presented in New York and London. Her play about philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, All Too Human, was a semi-finalist in the 2008 Eugene O’Neill National Playwriting Conference and was produced in Santa Fe in 2016. The Jewel in the Manuscript about Fyodor Dostoevesky was one of two winners of the Icicle Theater Festival and had readings in Seattle and New York. It premiered at the Adobe Theatre in Albuquerque in 2012 and was subsequently produced in Santa Fe at Warehouse 21 Theater.